Judge Voids Bush Policy on National Forest Roads

In the latest round of legal Ping-Pong over the future of 49 million roadless acres of national forests, a federal judge in California on Wednesday reinstated Clinton-era protections against logging and mining on the land and invalidated the Bush administration’s substitute policy.

The judge, Elizabeth D. LaPorte of Federal District Court in San Francisco, said the new policy had been imposed without the required environmental safeguards.

The reversal, however, does not cover nine million acres of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska because a separate set of legal opinions determines their use.

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